15. Hannah
HANNAH
Igrip the screwdriver tighter, the metal cool, and drive another screw into the cabinet hinge.
The morning light slants through the windows, catching dust motes that drift like tiny accusations.
Lily left for school an hour ago, her backpack slung over one shoulder and a sarcastic quip about my restless energy still hanging in the air.
I ought to be grateful for the quiet. Instead, every creak of the old floorboards pulls my thoughts back to Alaric.
He just left again yesterday. His answers as sparse as ever.
The way he looked at me—guarded, almost pained—lingers like a memory I return to.
I put the screwdriver down and move over the sink, testing the latch.
It holds firm, the wood reinforced with fresh brackets I don't remember installing.
My fingers trace the neat metal edges. When did that happen?
I check the back door next. The deadbolt turns smoothly, too smoothly, the mechanism replaced with something heavier than the one I bought. A folded note sits on the mudroom shelf beneath a hammer I thought I'd misplaced last week. I unfold it, the handwriting crisp and unfamiliar.
Mr. Blackwood covered the upgrade and labor. Said to bill him directly if anything else needs attention. —J. Harlan, Lock & Key Services
My stomach creases, and I crumple the paper, then smooth it out again.
This isn't the first coincidence. The loose porch step that fixed itself overnight.
The window that wouldn't stay shut until suddenly it did.
Tools that reappeared exactly where I needed them after I swore I'd left them scattered.
I'd chalked it up to small-town helpfulness or my own distraction.
Now the pattern stares back at me, sharp and deliberate.
Alaric has been moving through my life like a shadow I never asked for.
Protecting me. Deciding what I needed before I could even see any threat.
Gregory used to do the same thing—frame control as care, wrap it in concern until I couldn't breathe.
The memory burns, hot and familiar. I won't do this again.
I won't allow another man to curate my safety while keeping me oblivious.
I grab my jacket and head across the yard that afternoon before there's time to talk myself out of it. The air carries the sharp bite of pine and damp earth. Alaric's house looms, solid and imposing, its shutters closed against the day. I've never stepped inside.
I knock hard, three times. The door opens almost immediately. Alaric stands there in a simple black button-down, sleeves rolled to his forearms, his silver-gray eyes meeting mine without surprise. "Hannah."
I push past him into the foyer. The space feels like him—high ceilings, heavy oak beams, furniture arranged with precise restraint.
Low lamplight pools on polished wood floors.
No clutter, no photographs, just clean lines and quiet order.
A single leather armchair faces a cold fireplace.
Books line one wall in neat rows. The air smells faintly of cedar and something warmer, like him.
"You've been fixing things at my house," I say, turning to face him. My voice echoes slightly in the stillness. "Locks. Windows. Paying tradesmen behind my back. How long?"
He closes the door with a soft click, his movements measured. "Since the first break-in attempt. I checked the boundaries most nights. Reinforced what I could without you noticing."
"Without me noticing." I laugh, short and bitter. "That's the point, isn't it? You decide I can't handle it. You step in and handle it for me."
He steps closer but stops short of touching me, his broad shoulders tense. "I saw vulnerabilities. Doing nothing felt impossible. I wasn't trying to run your life, Hannah. I kept my distance where it mattered."
"Distance?" I gesture around his immaculate space, the controlled quiet of it all. "This is your version of distance? Watching, fixing, deciding? Gregory used to pull the same shit—disguise it as love, as protection. I left that behind for a reason."
Alaric's jaw works, but his expression stays steady, those piercing eyes shadowed with something raw. "I'm not him. I was afraid something would happen to you or Lily. Every time I told myself to stop, another loose end appeared. I tried not to cross lines. Clearly I failed at that."
His honesty hits harder than defensiveness would have. No excuses, just the weight of it. I see the strain in the set of his shoulders, the way his hands flex at his sides like he's holding himself back. He's not cold. He's unraveling, just enough for me to glimpse the fear beneath.
My heart pounds against my ribs. My hands come up to his chest, feeling the steady thud there. "You should have told me. I deserved to know."
"I know." His voice drops lower, rough. "You did. I'm sorry."
The apology lands simple and real. No grand gestures. Just him, standing in this sparse room, letting me see the crack in his armor. Something inside me shifts—anger twisting into need, sharp and undeniable.
I stomp over to him with the intention of warning but I freeze as I get close. Gaze into his eyes, questioning myself.
"Hannah." My name is almost a warning. "If you stay another minute, I'm going to—"
"What? Going to—"
And then he kisses me. I don't pull away, I put my arms around him, one hand of his splays at my back.
The kiss, urgent, our mouths meeting with the heat of everything unsaid.
His lips are firm, cold, tasting faintly of coffee.
I press closer, fingers curling into his shirt, and he responds with a low sound that vibrates through me.
"Are you sure you want this?"
"Yes," I say.
Our lips return, passionate, like he just unlocked something he sealed. One hand curves to my cheekbone, careful. The other settles at my waist. I push up into him. I make a sound against him that I'd be embarrassed by if I had room left to be embarrassed.
His restraint is its own language—every movement deliberate, held on a leash—and it makes me reckless.
I get my hands under the hem of his shirt and find skin, cool and smooth over hard muscle, and the careful sound he makes lands somewhere low in me.
I drag the shirt up, lifting his arms, and then his hands are at the buttons of mine with a slowness that's almost cruel, undoing me one at a time, his knuckles brushing each new inch of skin he uncovers until my shirt falls open and his breath goes ragged against my throat.
"Wow," he murmurs, and there's wonder in it, and hunger, and the leash beginning to fray.
He walks me backward until my shoulders meet the cool plaster of the wall, the chill of it a shock against my bare back that makes me gasp and arch into him.
His mouth moves down my throat, over my collarbone, and his hands learn me slowly, thumbs tracing the lace at my ribs, then beneath it.
He cups a breast and takes a nipple into his mouth that instantly hardens, and my breathing comes uncontrollable.
The groan he gives in answer is the first sound from him tonight that isn't controlled.
His fingers work at the button of my jeans.
"Don't stop." I beg, and I help him get my jeans off.
I kick free of them, and his hand rests on my left thigh, and I forget the wall, the cold, the argument, my own name.
He touches me like I'm a gift from God, like he has all the time anyone has ever had.
Eventually, I start rocking against his hand and saying please.
He undoes his pants, and drops them, only then does he lift me, my legs wrap around him, and his forehead drops to mine.
His cock pushes into me slowly, and he watches every movement from me, reading every flicker of it, holding himself still each time my breath catches. I tighten my legs around him indicating I'm fine. His control is trembling, but mine is long gone.
He moves, deep, slow, and devastatingly attentive, his hand sliding to the small of my back to angle me, his eyes buried in my soul.
The sensation rushing through me as he gazes is what undoes me.
The room filled with the sound of my wet pussy clenching around his cock.
The thrusts get deeper every time, and my head falls back against the wall.
He grunts repeatedly, and I grab his hair pulling his head back too.
That's when I come, the scream so loud that I know I'd never previously felt this.
The pulsing of my pussy around his wide cock makes it sensational.
He follows straight away, his cock expanding inside, prolonging my orgasm.
Both our knuckles white against each other, holding on.
His name breaks on my lips, and both our bodies drag down the plastered wall until we are sat on the sanded floorboards.
Instead of staying on the cold floor, he scoops me up and carries me to the chair by the fire.
He places a linen blanket over us, and his severe, ordered house holds our scattered clothes on the floor like evidence of a crime against it.
His heart, when I lay my hand on his chest, is slower than it should be, and steadier than mine.
I'm aware of everything I still don't know about him, and I know the questions have not disappeared just because his hand is moving slow circles over my bare shoulder.
But the fire is low, and his breathing is steady against my hair, and for the first time since I came to this town, the unknown does not feel only like something waiting to hurt me.
"I should have told you," he says finally.
"Yes," I say. "You should have."
His hand stills. "I will try to do better."
"This isn't just what happened between us," I say quietly. "Not for me."
His eyes lift to mine, careful and bright in the low firelight. "No," he says. "Not for me either."
The answer settles somewhere tender instead of frightening. I turn enough to see him. The words are not everything, but they are not nothing either.
"Then start there," I say.
He nods once, solemn and quiet, and draws me closer. For some crazy reason, I believe him, but it's not the end of an answer, it's just the beginning.